


On Alec and Max Lightwood's relationship

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Meta crossposts [2]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Book 1: City of Bones, Book 2: City of Ashes, Book 3: City of Glass, Gen, Meta, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 07:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6461521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I talk about the possible reasons behind Alec's difficulties to connect with his little brother and where they can come from. Crossposted from my tumblr, original post <a href="http://terresdebrume.tumblr.com/post/99049728591/archive-repost-alec-and-maxs-relationship">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Alec and Max Lightwood's relationship

**Author's Note:**

> This post was born of a (now lost) conversation I had with particlenumber13 about Alec and Max’s relationship, and why it’s so strained.

Particle pointed, and I agree with that, that Alec and Max’s strained relationship contradicts Alec’s (admitedly erratic) characterization as a loving person and brother, and so it got me thinking, and while I am firmly convinced Jace’s arrival didn’t help anything between the two brothers, I think the reasons for Alec’s distance toward Max didn’t start with him.

The facts are these :

  * When he was two, Alec had to live through moving from Idris to New York (It’s relevant, promise)
  * Alec was around nine when Max was born.
  * Max was conceived either shortly before or during Robert’s affair with Annamarie Highsmith.



So when Maryse and Robert took part in the Uprising, Alec was only a toddler and therefore probably doesn’t have many memories left of that time. However, we’re told that Alec is a very perceptive person, and some kids are pretty perceptive even at a young age, so it’s safe to theorize that Alec picked up on the tensions in the house.

At this time, Robert and Maryse had just lost several/the majority of their friends either to the Uprising itself or because of their trials where they were imprisoned/exiled/sentenced to death. Add to that the fact that they had to organize an undesired move on the spot with little to no support and probably lost most (if not all) of their social standing, it’s probably safe to assume baby Alec ended up going from pretty affectionate parents –Maryse, at least, is stated to have been the nurturing kind in COA- to parents who simply didn’t have time to spend as much time with him as they used to/wanted to.

See exhibit A:

> [Jace] didn’t move. “Do you remember that song you used to sing to Isabelle and Alec—when they were little and afraid of the dark—to get them to fall asleep?”
> 
> Maryse appeared taken aback. “What are you talking about?”
> 
> “I used to hear you through the walls,” he said. “Alec’s bedroom was next to mine then.”
> 
> She said nothing.
> 
> “It was in French,” Jace said. “The song.”
> 
> “I don’t know why you’d remember something like that.” She looked at him as if he’d accused her of something.
> 
> “You never sang to me.”
> 
> There was a barely perceptible pause. Then, “Oh, you,” she said. “You were never afraid of the dark.”
> 
> —Jace and Maryse, _City of Ashes_ , Ch 1 : Valentine’s Arrow.

From this exchange, we can deduce Maryse singing to her children was a common enough occurrence that Jace actually got kind of jealous over it, which means Maryse had to spend some time with them and care about whether or not they felt comfortable/safe/etc. Hence, nurturing mom.

And then the exile happens and suddenly Alec’s parents don’t have time for him anymore.

So the abrupt change in behavior from his parents plus the unexpected change, I think, played quite a role in Alec’s later tendency to make himself invisible, because children learn things surprisingly fast and even just a couple of weeks/month at such a young age can make a life-long impression on someone. Additionally, this might be part of why Alec became so protective of Isabelle –if, during that time, he’s been asked to take care of his sister, he could very well have made it part of his thoughts process and simply never stop.

Not to mention Shadowhunters are supposed to be a pretty sexist society, see this :

> “Because,” Jace said slowly, “it’s only been recently that women have been Shadowhunters along with men. I mean, there have always been women in the Clave—mastering the runes, creating weaponry, teaching the Killing Arts—but only a few were warriors, ones with exceptional abilities. They had to fight to be trained. Maryse was a part of the first generation of Clave women who were trained as a matter of course—and I think she never taught Isabelle how to cook because she was afraid that if she did, Isabelle would be relegated to the kitchen permanently.”
> 
> —Jace to Clary in _City of Bones_ , Ch 9 : The circle and the Brotherhood.

So yeah, pretty sexist, and only just recently changing. The thing is, patriarcal societies have a tendency to place a lot of responsibilities and expectations on boys. If Alec has been told to be ‘the man of the house’ while his father was away, maybe to organize their moving or whatever, it could very well have drilled this sense of responsibility into him.

This would also have created a precedent in Alec to think that change is bad, and it could also have put him in a mindset where he has to try and avoid creating problems/being a problem to his parents –not, I think, that Robert or Maryse would have put it that way, but a two years old boy with busy parents can easily make that kind of assumption, unfortunately.

Fast-forward to seven years later and little Alec and his sister have settled in New York. They’re living alone with Maryse and Robert, at least one of whom spends a lot of time with them and cares about making them feel safe, about making them feel loved… then little Max comes in. Now, the change could have been difficult to handle even if Maryse and Robert had been completely happy, because sometimes kids aren’t happy about new siblings from the get go for plenty of reasons, especially when they come late in the game and come disturb a well-established routine.

Furthermore, considering the huge age gap, the siblings were bound to hit rough patches for purely developmental reasons : their different needs and interests would have come in the way, which is perfectly normal and not necessarily the sign that there is a problem as far as I know.

But the thing is, these aren’t ordinary circumstances.

> “Well, you know [Robert and Maryse] were both in the Circle. But I bet you didn’t know it was all my mom’s idea. My dad was never really enthusiastic about Valentine or any of it. And then when everything happened, and they got banished, and they realized they’d practically wrecked their lives, I think he blamed her. But they already had Alec and were going to have me, so he stayed, even though I think he kind of wanted to leave. And then, when Alec was about nine, he found someone else.”
> 
> “Whoa,” Simon said. “Your dad cheated on your mom? That’s—that’s awful.”
> 
> “She told me,” said Isabelle. “I was about thirteen. **She told me that he would have left her but they found out she was pregnant with Max, so they stayed together and he broke it off with the other woman.** My mom didn’t tell me who she was. She just told me that you couldn’t really trust men. And she told me not to tell anyone.”
> 
> —Isabelle to Simon, _City of Fallen Angels_ , Ch 12 : Sanctuary

From this exchange we know that by the time Maryse found out she was pregnant with Max, she already knew Robert was having/had had an affair with Annamarie Highsmith, who died during the events of _City of Glass_. This means she was probably pretty frustrated with Robert, who was most likely frustrated right back at her, meaning that the Institute was probably not the most pleasant place to live in at the time.

(There’s also a possibility that Hodge, being at Valentine’s service, tried to fan the flames so as to create further tension in the apparently limited population of Shadowhunters and prepare for Valentine’s return. Of course, that could only have happened _IF_ he somehow knew about the affair, which we don’t know about. I’m just saying, if her knew, that’s a possibility.  
And of course, there’s no telling whether or not Maryse managed to get pregnant specifically so Robert wouldn’t leave, but considering the huge age gap between Alec + Isabelle and Max it’s safe to assume Max was likely not a planned event. Whether he was a complete surprise or not is a topic for another post.)

Now, Alec is described and shown as a pretty compassionnate person, who picks up on others’ moods rather easily –the scene in _City of Bones_ where Magnus talks about his mother comes to mind first.  
It doubt this trait of his developped late in life, so I think he picked up on the fact that his parents were having problems with one another, but didn’t know why. Then Maryse tells her children they’re going to have a new sibling, but that wouldn’t be enough to erase the rest, and she and Robert would still be pissed at one another, particularly if Robert stayed out of concern for his reputation/his honor/Max’s welfare –we just don’t know why he stayed.

I imagine Alec would have noticed the changes that occurred in the house after they learned his mom was pregnant –maybe Robert grew more distant, maybe he and Maryse stopped sleeping in the same bedroom, that kind of things.  
And Alec, who had to deal with his parents feeling tense about a certain topic, would probably want to avoid getting involved with the new source of problems again.

It’s possible that, much as he would have stopped asking about friends of his parents’ he was used to see before they left Idris, he decided to kind of stay away from the new baby, who had the misfortune to be born at the same time Maryse and Roberts started having problems in their relationship (at least to Alec’s eyes) and who Alec could easily have subconsciously labeled as the source of their problems.

This would mean that for the first few months or (more likely) years of his life, Max would have grown up with an older brother who didn’t appear to care much about him, possibly even acted stiff around him (I would imagine, at that point, Alec was pretty conflicted about Max. If Maryse and Robert used him to kind of fight and/or get back at one another, through his name for example*, it would only have made things worse.)

Imagine baby Max with two siblings, one of whom is clearly more interested in spending time with him than the other, who is a lot less forthcoming, who do you think he’d be closer to ? That’s right.  
Then when Jace comes along and turns out to be the “perfect” Shadowhunter who also, possibly, lets Max trail behind him like a duckling (I think baby Jace was probably a profoundly lonely kid, whether or not he expressed/realized it) which I suppose is better than nothing.

Just this is already ground enough for the two Lightwood boys to grow into more distant brothers (even if Alec tries to bridge the gap later on, which isn’t certain, he might not be able to) but then, when you add the fact that Jace is constantly loaded to be this super perfect guy while Alec is a lot more withdrawn and therefore more easily forgotten about (which would sound like disapproval by default compared to what Isabelle and Jace get) then I guess it isn’t surprising Max would develop a sort of hero worship of Jace as is canon (though I don’t remember where it was stated ><).

And as an older brother who is already shy with self-worth issues and a tendency to be overly accomodating, I don’t think Alec would be the kind to react to Max’s dismissal/indifference toward him by insisting they do more things together—I think he would tend to set himself aside even more and leave the brotherly stuff to Jace, hence an even more distant relationship.

And for the record ? I think after Max’s death, that attitude is going to come back to haunt him.

———————————————

*Particle has a headcanon/theory for why Max is named after Maryse’s brother (other than her brother being lost to her, that is) which I think makes sense and have therefore kind of adopted :

> I actually have a name head canon for Max. If you look at the clockwork princess there is a family tree and you can see where Alec and Isabelle get their full names from. Maryse and Robert named their two eldest children on some of the Lightwood ancestors. Whereas Max’s full name is Maxwell Joseph, which do not appear in the family tree. I think she was fully claiming Max as hers and showed it through their naming convention. After all, she named Izzy and Alec after her husband’s family and then he cheated on her.


End file.
